The Boy Who Came Back to Life
by John Smith
Summary: On a critical mission that could change the fate of a nation, a young nurse begins to have doubts. She holds the power of life and death in her hands... so why can't she think straight in front of those clear blue eyes? NaruSaku Historical AU
1. Chapter 1

Well, I'm back with a new fic this time. This AU is dedicated to **charmedwicca **on tumblr, who is my recipient for the 2014 NaruSaku Gift Exchange! Merry Christmas, and I hope you enjoy! I wish I could have given you the whole fic by Christmas instead of _just_ chapter one, but family/time/inspiration just conspired against me. I will do everything in my power to post a chapter daily until the story is complete, and I don't expect to go past the 29th which is the official deadline. ...but we'll see. Knowing my brain, _things will happen_ and what could have been 5-6 chapters will rapidly multiply like some freakish amoeba into 12 chapters.

Special thanks to my buds **Joey**, **Turmanarmo**, **Igornerd**, **ahmadaziz**, **FaithfulWhispers**, **Marie**,** TemplarWarden**, and **foxkrystal **for help with ideas, beta-reading, and/or morale boosting. Thanks buds! (CAN YOU GUYS TELL I WAS NERVOUS LOL)

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><p><strong>The Boy Who Came Back to Life<strong>

"Swanhilde, a word please." Sonja was bowed over her young patient, her light brown hair pulled back into a bun which was wrapped in pink fabric and tied with a red ribbon. She nodded an acknowledgement to her impatient boss, a tall blonde woman. Standing in the doorway, the blonde gazed over the scene before her with an appraising look. Sonja returned her attention to the little girl she'd just bandaged.

"You'll be okay, but no more jumping around like a little monkey," she spoke with a mischievous smile, making the little girl giggle and blush. Standing, she straightened the skirt of her nurse's dress and exchanged thanks with the child's mother.

"Come, Swanhilde," the blonde doctor requested again before smiling at the little girl and turning on her heel to leave, Sonja just behind her. Their heels clacked through the hallway and then into an office.

"Yes, Frau Schwend?" She asked once the door had clicked shut.

"It's okay to call me Tatiana, Sonja." She said, reaching out to brush a stray lock of hair off her student's forehead. Sonja wore a wry smile. Her mentor, teacher, and boss had loosened up quite a lot in the past few years—she was retired now... from the _other _job. Well, retired from the field, at least.

"So?" Sonja asked, placing a hand on her hip expectantly.

"We talked about the boy already. The estate belongs to an officer named Dänzer. He's a cruel man. You'll be a nun." Sonja gave a quiet sigh. "Don't be like that. You'll be fine."

"I know, I just don't care for the nun cover. Too..." She paused, trying to choose the right word. "Submissive." Tatiana laughed.

"Stick it out. It should be quick, but use your judgment, as always." Sonja nodded, already beginning to tick off what she needed for this job. The _other_ job. She'd miss the hospital, for sure, but her people needed her for more than just scraped knees. The Great War had marked a time of extreme poverty and weakness for Germany, and while the country had recovered economically, its political structure had suffered beyond repair. Whispers of a second great war were seeping through cracks in the walls like smoke. Sonja had to be strong for her common, vulnerable people. Even if it meant losing herself a little more every time, she would protect them. "Oh, and Sonja," Tatiana added, her eyes suddenly hard and filled with passion, "Be careful."

—

Sonja snapped on a pair of medical gloves just as coldly as she snapped her other heart into place. Her heels dug into the carpet as she approached the room. The halls of Dänzer's manor were hauntingly quiet, sending sterile echoes of snapping rubber and jangling military decorations bouncing against the windowless dead end before her. She stopped before reaching it, hearing the slow, deliberate steps of the officer behind her come to a stop. _Too close_. She swallowed the discomforted feeling and tried to focus on the last door in this long hallway instead.

The corpse.

"Go in alone." The deep, commanding voice of Dänzer was not loud, but it tore into the air and pounded into every crevice with its echoing timbre. "I will wait." She turned, blinking her eyes rapidly, her expression confused and pleading.

She barely reached his chin in height, and his broad shoulders were squared off and covered in bright military decoration—tassels and badges and stripes and pins and that sickening emblem with the _Hakenkreuz_. The eye patch made his one visible eye even more beady and frightening than it would have been otherwise, and the _X_ scarred into his chin left her wondering whether it was self-inflicted for an intimidating edge.

"Go in." He repeated it without feeling, and that cold, beady eye slid to meet hers. She swallowed, then nodded once.

"Yes, Herr Dänzer." She warbled in a nervous half-whisper.

The uncertainty was gone from her features the moment she turned away. _Schwein_, that's all he was. She'd read his file, clutching it with white knuckles and a clenched jaw. He was nothing more than a puppet and a filthy, murderous _pig_. He should be a corpse, too. But Sonja's corpses were meticulous, delicate things that offered no clues or hints of any sort.

It was with this methodical thinking that she swallowed her anger again and watched him reach forward toward the doorknob. The black leather glove reflected off the rounded bronze surface like a spider descending onto prey. He twisted it, and click-_clack_. With a press of his hand to the wood, the white door slowly creaked open until she could see what was sitting on the bed inside.

The corpse.

It was a young man. No older than her. His skin was tanned from exposure to the sun—admittedly something she hadn't expected. But he was just as expected otherwise. Blonde hair. Blue eyes. She studied him briefly but took in every detail she needed. The approximation of a corpse's height and weight came to her quite naturally, even at a glance. She had handled dozens of corpses even at just seventeen years old.

She stepped inside and brushed the door shut behind her, careful to not touch her gloved hands to the surface. With each step, her senses took in more information, and she locked it away with measured precision. Sonja could tell the time of his death and the method—ricin poisoning was the most likely candidate. Ricin was always a good fallback when one wanted to avoid detection. Her mission details had already told her about the corpse's infection—the reason he required medical treatment in the first place. The ricin, inserted directly into the wound, would mimic systemic toxicity. An untrained eye would never even suspect its use. Even a well-trained eye would easily miss foul play. Sonja, however, was no stranger to poisons.

"Hallo Fräulein," the corpse said.

"Hallo," she quipped back absently—without interrupting her thoughts or meeting his eyes. She had picked up and begun to read his medical chart, skimming over it as quickly as possible. It went without question that she could not take her attention away from the door behind her, nor the possibly-armed corpse before her.

"What's your name?" From where he was sitting up in bed, he tilted his head a little, then his mouth grew into a wide, friendly, _convincing_ smile. _Dangerous puppet_. She hated him already. She hated all of them. The puppets. The pigs. The toys who were trained and groomed and dolled up just so they could stand in front of crowds and be just as loved, just as _obeyed unquestioningly _as the Führer and all the others that had come before. And all the others that would come after.

The corpse, like every other corpse Sonja handled, was a dictator in training. Perhaps a figurehead in training. Maybe royalty in training. Definitely a corrupted tool of propaganda. It didn't matter how they would use him. He would be—like all the others—a face, a _body_ used to attain and maintain power.

A puppet.

Soon to be a corpse.

"My name is Sara." Sonja responded to him with a thin smile, finally meeting his eyes. "I will be tending to you for now, Herr Nicolaus." He made a sound that could have come from a barn, and his smile caved under the weight of an enormous frown. He snorted again, less loudly this time, before crossing his arms.

"Don't call me Nicolaus. It's _Nico._ Call me Nico!" Sonja felt her lips part slightly with surprise, and she quickly snapped them shut, curving the corners into another muted smile.

"Very well, Herr Nico." She stated.

"_Just_ Nico." He demanded, brow furrowed. "I don't like that weird _Herr_ stuff." In the few words he'd spoken, Sonja had made short work of analyzing. His accent scraped against dialects she knew well—there was some Berlin, some Hessian, and even some Bavarian—but he didn't _quite _fit any accent she'd heard before. The closest, she thought, had to be the filthy youths she'd fed in the alleys of Frankfurt during one of her less orthodox missions. They had also lilted between different accents, much like this corpse, but one common denominator was shared: they all sounded like street trash.

Puppets usually didn't sound like street trash.

But demanding to be addressed on a first name—no, on a _byname_ basis... that was _classic_ for pigs. It was classic control. Classic propaganda. _Create the illusion of equality_. That's all he was doing. He was playing her like he'd been carefully tutored to play every person he met. Create a friendly demeanor. Create rapport. Sonja realized, with a slight purse of her lips, that his low-class accent was likely a part of that act as well. They were getting more clever with their puppets now, weren't they?

Sonja turned away from him, intending to acquire her medical bag, but she paused when she came face to face with a nurse. The woman stared back at her from the full length mirror with hauntingly _feeling_ eyes. Her nurse's dress was a dull gray, starched and stiff. Over it, a full white apron was tied. The straps wrapped thickly over her shoulders, constraining her. A small broach of a red cross sat on her collar. Sonja reached up and straightened her own broach, watching as the nurse did the same in perfect synchronization. Their fingers reached higher in unison then, up to the nurse's temple. They tucked a lock of light brown hair back into that joke of a nun's veil that completed Sonja's disguise.

"What's that pink thing for anyway?" The corpse asked her. Her eyes flicked to his—he was peeking over the nurse's right shoulder in the mirror.

"It's part of my habit." She turned back around to regard him with a raised eyebrow. He looked no less bemused—more so, actually. "I'm a member of the Sisters of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Spirit."

"Of the _what?_" He asked, shaking his head with intense confusion. "What kinda weird thing is _that?_" Sonja couldn't help herself from feeling a spike of anger. How could someone be this _ignorant_ to the real world? The order was famous all over Europe, known for their medical training and prowess. Who _hadn't_ seen the pink-veiled women bustling through the markets, homes, and hospitals of nearly every city and town of Germany? It was a point of pride that Sonja could fill any role required of her. Nun, equipment technician, chemist, surgeon, janitor, assistant, switchboard operator—she could do it all. She could mimic any accent. She could speak any dialect of German on top of her fluency in eighteen other languages—and this spoiled little puppet was so sheltered that it was all wasted on him. Sonja knew it was her job to not allow emotions any semblance of control over this part of her life. She also knew that that her duties were hardly anything to be proud of. But she _was _proud, and few others could boast the same level of skill she had worked so hard for.

That was just one of the things she hated about these slovenly, uncultured puppet-swine. They were spoiled and lauded and respected for no reason other than to create a sense of power where no power truly lay. They were weak, uncultured, inexperienced, _unskilled_ fools who showed respect only to those like themselves—who obeyed the sickening group-think of their own kind unquestioningly.

Her anger began temper, however, at the thought that perhaps her newest corpse was not feigning his ignorance nor his low-class accent—it was quite possible that he was truly a street urchin dragged out of obscurity to be placed on a pedestal. Clearly, this one was chosen not for his brains or charisma—not like that black-haired, black-eyed swine commanding the people of Germany right now—but for his _appearance_. He looked like his father. That was the only reason why he was chosen to be a puppet. This Nico—this _Nicolaus Unsausen,_ the lost-then-found son of the late Milan Unsausen may not have been raised a rich, spoiled brat from birth like the other puppets and swine, but he was still a threat. He still had to be a corpse. Even a low-class fool like this_—especially_ a low-class fool like this—would unquestioningly obey his superiors in order to maintain the pampered, lovely life he'd just been handed.

It would be easy to see someone like him as an innocent, as a victim. And to some extent, he was both. But the problem with creating victims out of such people was that it necessarily had to ignore their role in it all. Nicolaus Unsausen may have been a victim of his own lineage and of the power-hungry regime that had commandeered his life. But he was still _allowing_ it happen. He was not, _couldn't be_ innocent if he complied with the _Gleichschaltung_.

The door creaked. The sound of leather gloves being pulled taught preceded Dänzer, and his heel squeaked on the threshold as he pivoted into the room. Sonja stiffened, her arms straightening at her sides.

"Herr Nicolaus. You have now met your attendant. Sister Sara will tend to your wound until you are well. You have been permitted a time of rest physically, but you are required to pursue your studies and maintain _proper_ spoken German. You cannot be permitted to shame _Deutsch_ any longer with your unrefined street tongue." His voice boomed with a natural sort of command that was inherited, not practiced. Sonja could see why a man like this was chosen to oversee the progress of Nicolaus Unsausen—to groom him into a future tool of the so-called _"Great" _Reich. It wasn't _just _that Dänzer had known Milan Unsausen closely for many years, as she'd read in his file. No, a man like this would be overbearing and inescapably clear in his expectations. A man like this would make her job hard.

"_Leck mein arsch._" Nico responded defiantly, his eyes locked with Dänzer's. Sonja nearly snorted with laughter, but she clapped a hand to her mouth and coughed instead to cover it.

Slowly, measuredly, Dänzer turned to face her, his jaw tight with anger. Sonja made an effort to place an innocent, scandalized look on her features. It seemed to satisfy him—or perhaps he was not looking for her disapproval at all—because he nodded his chin sharply at the door.

"Give us a moment, Sister. Danke." She did not hesitate; the starched fabric of her dress shifted stiffly as she made her way to the door. However, she did glance over to see Dänzer clasp his hands behind his back. He squared his shoulders, his attention back on Nico. With a _click_, she she respectfully pulled the door shut.

Sonja didn't mind the delay. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a personal grooming compact, unzipping it and glancing into the mirror at that nurse. She tapped the reflective glass with a fingernail, knowing her minuscule ricin supply lay behind it innocently, and the frown on the nurse's face sank just a tad deeper at the edges.

It didn't matter what reprimand he was now receiving behind a closed door that muted none of the hissing, guttural scoldings of the officer.

It didn't matter what groaning, frustrated, and positively _vulgar_ responses he bit back, nor how much Sonja wanted dearly to admire him for them.

It didn't matter that the ricin would leave him suffering gruesome pain for hours if not days before the job was done.

It didn't matter.

He was just a corpse, after all.

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><p>Merry Christmas again everyone! LOL! I'll admit that this is not the most light hearted topic for a Christmas gift fanfiction, but I suppose we'll see how it all ends up. xD I gotta say once more that this story is lovingly dedicated to <strong>charmedwicca<strong>, who requested an assassins!au. I really wasn't sure where to go with that, and certainly my mind is a strange, frightening place (as anyone who's read my NaruSaku family fic surely knows already), so I _sincerely hope _that this is enjoyable and/or the kind of thing you were possibly-maybe looking for. I hope you enjoy your gift! :D

As a side note, I've been informed by a few people now that this is a _different_ sort of an AU. I admit I have read very few AUs and not many (if any) in recent memory, so apparently I was unfamiliar with the "genre" at large. lmao oops!

Okay now onto some annotations to the story itself. At the bottom of each chapter I will include a glossary/pronunciation guide (you'll see it below these comments) so you can reference what the terms in German mean. If you're interested in looking up the references in my story, you may find some fun little pieces of information. While I tried to keep everything as historically accurate as possible, I could not find an order of nuns that wears pink veils—not sure if one exists at all. However, the Perpetual Adoration Sisters [of the Holy Spirit] is an order that _does _have pink in their habits, even if their veils are not pink. It was founded in the Netherlands in 1896, so the "pink habit" idea is not as unlikely for this time period in Europe as you might think. I based the name of Sonja's order on that real-life order so that, if people were to do a search, they'd probably find the real deal quite easily. :)

**Glossary of some of the German terms/names**

Please note that the dialect/accent of German I am _mildly _familiar with is reflected in the pronunciations below. If you know a pronunciation differently (for example _schön_ being pronounced "shane" instead of my "shern"), feel free to ignore my pronunciation notes.

**Sonja **(_ZON_-ya with a long o as in "own")

**Nicolaus** (_KNEE_-ko-lauz with an au that rhymes with the ou in "house")

**Dänzer** (_DEHN_-tzuh with a tz sound like in the word "pizza")

**Swanhilde** (zvan-_HILL_-deh)

**Danke/Dankeschön **(DON-kuh/DON-kuh-shern): Thank you or Thank you kindly. The -schön on the end of things is considered an addition of kindness or respect

**Deutsch **(doych): German, the German language

**Fräulein **(like _FROY_-line): Miss or Young Lady

**Führer **(a little like _FYOOR_-rah, but that _üh_ is a very specific sound): Leader or _the_ leader that we all know about from the History Channel's relentlessly single-minded programming

**Gleichschaltung **(_GLIKE_-shall-toonk... roughly xD): A word meaning "coordinating" or "bringing together" or "aligning," basically a word used to describe the transformation of Germany into a unified school of political thought in order to control every facet of society more efficiently. For Nicolaus to be a part of this is for him to be a tool of Germany's current government—he'd be used to help gain public trust and thus gain even more control

**Hakenkreuz **(_HOCK_-en-kroytz): An infamous symbol often seen during this period in Germany, although at this point the general public did not realize the negativity it embodied, so it was still commonplace and well-respected. It would not be uncommon for anyone in the German military to wear this symbol—just as the officer overseeing Nicolaus wears it

**Herr **(very much like hair): Mister or Sir. Referring to Nicolaus as "Herr Nicolaus" is essentially showing respect: "Mr. Nicolaus"

**Leck mein arsch **(Leck Mine Ash with a slightly softened "a" sound): More or less the equivalent of "kiss my ass," although the literal meaning is a bit more vulgar.

**Schwein/Schweinen **(shvine/_SHVINE_-en): Pig/Pigs. Sonja has strong feelings about certain people.

**Unsausen **(un-_ZOW_-zen): Nico's last name. I actually made this up and don't know what the exact meaning would/could be. Sausen is a word that refers to speed, such as speeding in a car. I chose a reference to speed since I otherwise don't know if I will canonize Milan's (Minato's) infamous speediness in this continuity—just not enough time/space for it.


	2. Chapter 2

Here we are at day 2! I want to thank all of you who read and left reviews. It really keeps me going! I also am so so so so so so so SO happy and proud to have received positive and excited feedback from the recipient of this gift fic, **charmedwicca**. Thank you once again for your kind feedback! :D Also great thanks to my buds once again, particularly **Joey** and **Turmanarmo** for their kind help with this chapter as well. :)

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><p>The caustic reprimand session ended inside the room, and Sonja zipped the compact shut again before sliding it back into her pocket. She watched the doorknob turn; Dänzer stepped outside, closing the door behind him.<p>

"Thank you for waiting, Sister Sara." He said it with an incredible measure of gentility, as though he hadn't just been constricting his controlling grip around another young soul. Sonja very much doubted she could hate him any more, even as a small, timid smile fluttered to her face and she nodded him a greeting. "Please, follow me and we will discuss further over tea." His words left her surprised—infections were nothing to take lightly, yet he wanted to sit for tea before she attended to the corpse's infected wound? A sense of deep suspicion scraped against her mind as he turned and began walking back up the hallway; her mouth twitched into a frown the moment his back was to her.

"Dankeschön, Herr Dänzer." She said softly, following after him. She wasn't sure what she liked less: walking with his looming form at her heels like some monster... or following after him and feeling, momentarily, like a puppet herself.

A hand servant was standing at the foot of the stairs, her hands folded neatly over her apron and her head bowed.

"Herr Dänzer, your tea is ready. I have set a place for your guest as well, sir." He nodded and placed a hand onto the girl's shoulder as he reached the bottom step; the contact lingered in a way that left Sonja narrowing her eyes coldly.

"Please sit, Sister." He gestured toward a couch and then sat himself. Not one to mince words, he continued as soon as the two were seated. "Sister Sara, you will tend to the wound of Herr Nicolaus. You will also tutor him in proper etiquette and grammar." Sonja felt her muscles tense. "You may use my son Sven as a model. He will accompany you as often as time permits and provide any assistance you may require."

"Herr Dänzer, I..." Sonja said, ensuring that her voice was sufficiently meek. "I'm surprised. I did not realize you intended that I tutor your charge in addition to offering medical attention." His deeply embossed frown intensified ever so slightly.

"You are well disciplined in such matters, are you not? I am aware that the convent educates well. I expect this for Herr Nicolaus, nothing more." She swallowed.

"Very well, sir." She said softly, completely at odds with her swirling, rushing thoughts. This was Nicolaus Unsausen, son of _the_ Milan Unsausen—and this military officer was employing a _nun_ for grooming his manners? This didn't fit—a non sequitur. This _didn't make any sense_. Why? Her mind zipped through possibilities with incredible speed. Was it because his behavior was so poor he would not benefit from a professional team of groomers quite yet? _Ridiculous._ Was it due to a lack of funds—but that would require the government to care nothing about the heir of Milan Unsausen. _Preposterous_. Was it because the boy was expected to die and thus very little was being invested in this lost cause? But that didn't explain his lack of fever nor the absence of more qualified medical professionals. _Ludicrous._

In fact... the whole situation was odd and unnerving, now that she considered it more deeply. It had been a pleasant surprise that Nicolaus Unsausen was brought to a more private location for the grooming process, but she and her organization had considered it an attempt to keep his existence unknown from the public until the best possible moment. What Sonja was now realizing—what she now _saw_—was that perhaps it was being hidden from more than just the public.

Where were the other officers? With a boy like Herr Unsausen's son, wouldn't Goebbels himself want to approve or even assign a tutor? A crushing, overwhelming, _delightful_ revelation flooded over Sonja.

Nobody knew.

Dänzer had acquired the sole heir of one of the most lauded and loved politicians Germany had ever had, and _he was hiding it from the Reich_. In spite of her usually stringent self-control, an unconscious smile slid onto Sonja's lips.

She finished her tea and cruller in silence—after bowing her head in a feigned prayer of thanks, of course—and then rose with Dänzer for a tour of the facilities she would have access to and an explanation of the usual meal schedule of the manor. He reminded her that her medical bag had been brought up to the boy's room. He showed her where her room was—two down from Herr Nicolaus. Sonja followed with rapt attention and noted that his gait had slowed and a true limp was beginning to show. After guiding her back to her patient's room, he excused himself and hobbled down another hallway of the large manor. From the corner of her eye, Sonja watched him depart. He had a kind of drug dependency for pain regulation, she concluded easily.

She took another breath and then knocked before stepping back into the corpse's room. Nicolaus was still seated on the bed, but his arms were crossed and his head turned toward the window, brow furrowed. She thought he was still petulantly angry over his earlier disciplining, but then a small sound issued forth from behind the door. Tensing, she swung it back and found Dänzer's son seated in a chair against the wall. He appeared around her age as well, perhaps a tad younger. His slick, black hair was oiled back, giving a positively menacing air to his otherwise lanky and pale form. His eyes were an inky black that seemed to suck up light, reflecting nothing.

"Guten tag," she told him, bowing her head. He said nothing in return. Nico snorted.

"Don't bother. That creepy weirdo don't talk." He said, angling his head just a tad so he could regard her.

"_Does not_. Herr Sven does not speak." Sonja allowed herself a less gentle tone with him, but she still felt positively docile. When Nico blinked at her with confusion, she explained herself. "Herr Dänzer has asked me to tutor you in the art of speaking properly. I will be assisting you in that as well as tending to your wound." She said. The way his face slowly morphed into disgust was almost comical, but Sonja kept her expression carefully muted, even when his imminent explosion came.

"I'm sick of this junk! I don't wanna talk right, I don't wanna sit in bed, and I _don't_ wanna be stuck in this weird stuffy place! Lady, you better just fix me up so I can get outta here." He clenched his fists and then pointed accusingly, his gestures wild and agitated. He was a _child_, Sonja realized. She had worked with many children, and she knew the best way to deal with the oversized ones like him. However—and she didn't have to glance back at the oil-haired rat behind her to know he was watching her with his beady black eyes—she would take no chances yet.

"Please understand, young sir. You must—"

"It's _Nico_." He said it with a different tone, with a different air about him altogether. His eyes pierced into hers with intensity and fervor. "Why can't you just call me Nico? You people put me in a house, look me in the eye, wanna actually _help_ me," here he gestured to his leg for emphasis before slamming a fist onto the sheets next to him. "But nobody ever _listens_." There was a pregnant pause after he finished, and then his eyes flicked uncertainly to Sven, up to Sonja, then to the opposite wall, as though he suddenly realized he'd said too much.

"Very well, Nico." Sonja felt that her jaw had tightened and forced herself to relax it. He was certainly a unique corpse. "Please allow me to tend to your wound now." She stated. Her natural inclination was to request that the rat leave the room, but she suspected he would neither leave nor forget to report such an action to his father. The corpse seemed to think the same because he glanced untrustingly at the rat and then, with an unsatisfied look, pushed his blanket down to his ankles.

He wore simple white nightclothes, a long shirt and baggy shorts that reached his knees, although the right pant leg had been rolled up to expose a bandaged thigh.

"Roll the other one up too," she instructed without preamble. "If you would," she added with a meek dip of her head.

"Why?" The corpse asked. Sonja had already turned and was retrieving her medical bag. Annoyed, she didn't respond until she reached his bedside. She swallowed her anger down again with another smile. Now she could see Sven again, positioned opposite the corpse from him. An eerie smile had slid onto his face. Otherwise, he had remained almost inhumanly still. Sonja tore her eyes away from him to regard her corpse once again.

"I would like to see how much swelling your wound has caused. We shall compare." Nico frowned but reached forward and rolled his other pant leg haphazardly. The difference was shocking; his right thigh nearly twice the size of his left. With a hissed breath through clenched teeth, he raised his right knee until he could pass a hand below and tug at the bandage. Sonja immediately reached out to stop his hand. "Allow me to cut it for you." She stated.

The wound was a small ragged hole in his flesh with puffy, zigzagged edges. It wept with fluid and pus, and the skin in a wide girth around it was a sickly yellow in the wake of the bandage's pressure—slowly, reddish tones returned as the blood flowed more freely again. Either the bandage had been tied too tightly or the swelling had increased significantly since it was tied.

Uncovering the wound was similar to unwrapping a gift. Sonja no longer had to work to imagine a pale, swollen corpse. He _was_ dead. Unless Dänzer got smart and demanded the leg amputated, there was no hope for this boy to live. The wound's infection would poison his blood and kill him with fever in weeks if not days.

Her job was now a waiting game. In lieu of something changing, the boy would die. If something _did_ change—if Dänzer demanded an amputation or decided the boy's life was worth handing him over to the Reich—then she would be forced to take action after all. The very nature of taking such action was exposing herself to the risk of being caught, so Sonja felt a deep sense of appreciation that indeed, it was now just a waiting game.

—

"What is the prognosis, Sister?" Dänzer's voice might never fail to elicit unease from Sister Sara, whose shoulders shrunk at his tone, but it would never intimidate Sonja. She had quickly accustomed herself to the voice and now wondered whether she could convince her organization that he should also be a corpse.

"Herr Dänzer, sir, I believe there is a possibility of recovery, but the wound is deeply infected." She said, gazing at the floor before his mahogany desk, quelling a quiet desire to read the titles of each and every book lining the walls of this luxurious study. Books had become a dangerous and rare commodity in this country, and Sonja couldn't help but wonder whether he had some so-called "un-German" books in his collection. A pile of warm embers glowed in the fireplace, casting an odd orange throughout the room.

"You cleaned the wound?" He asked. She nodded.

"Yes sir."

"And you used clean bandages?"

"Of course sir." Sonja's response lacked all of the vehemence searing through her veins.

"Did the boy give you trouble?" Here, one corner of his mouth curved into what could have been a smirk, but she strongly wondered whether this man knew how to smile at all anymore.

"Oh no sir. Herr Nicolaus was kind and maintained composure even when I applied antiseptic." She smiled encouragingly.

"And with tutoring?" With this question, he leveled her with a piercing stare. She let her smile sink but not quite disappear.

"He was reluctant, but I am confident that he will come to understand the advantage of proper verbiage." Dänzer seemed satisfied by her answer, giving a single nod. There was a long pause, interrupted only by the occasional _snap_ of wood embers still alight. Then he finally spoke.

"You are quite polished in your words, yourself, Sister. There is no need to coat the truth with what you think I want to hear. You know he will die." When they locked eyes, she feared for one frigid, paralyzing second that he saw through it all. "But he will not—_if_ you do as I say." He stood then, reached into his pocket, and held out a small glass jar for her. She stepped forward and accepted it into her cupped hands. Sonja's heart sped up. Pills? For an infection? "Ensure that he takes these daily without a meal. This medicine is named Prontosil. You can thank _Farben_ for this, _heil Deutschland_." IG Farben, the chemical company?

"Heil Deutschland," she repeated in an absent murmur, staring at the drug. If this could work... She felt her other heart beating to life, imagining the faces of so many innocents dying needlessly of infection at her helpless fingertips. If this worked, so many people could be saved. She swallowed and looked back up to find Dänzer's hard, one-eyed gaze on her.

"He refuses to take them from me. I am certain that you will convince him otherwise, Sister. Am I correct in thinking so?" Sonja had been wrong. He did know how to smile. The way his lips curved up at the edges could have frightened Boris Karloff away.

"I will do my best, Herr Dänzer." She nodded a quick bow.

"Good. The boy must be a fine speaker. He is important, you see. I entrust to you someone who shall lead, my dear. Perhaps we are in the presence of the future Führer." His wicked smirk widened fractionally. Sonja blinked with surprise, forcing herself not to clench her fists.

"I... I am _honored_, sir," she said, bowing her head again. Dänzer offered no response except to gesture that she leave, and Sonja stepped out of the room.

—

This changed everything. Sonja had to get in contact with her people as soon as possible. She was now completely certain of two things: She'd been right in thinking that Dänzer was keeping this boy a secret from the world. And she was marked as a corpse herself.

Dänzer had made it inescapably clear, although she was fairly certain that even he had not realized his own clarity, at least when speaking to a simple nun. By revealing to her that the boy would lead, could be _the _leader, he had shown his lack of concern about what she knew. People who knew things were made to disappear. Whether or not she were caught snuffing out his precious investment, Dänzer planned to kill her.

_This changed everything._

"_Use your judgment_," Frau Tatiana had said. A smile slid onto Sonja's face. Yes, she would contact the organization, but her judgment certainly subsumed any self-defense that may be needed. She stepped lightly back to her patient's room, clutching the glass jar in her hand reverently.

Getting the corpse to take his medicine was a journey through frustration and bitten-down, swallowed anger, but it allotted her time that evening to write a lengthy letter back to her supposed convent. It would be intercepted before it ever reached the nuns—and prior to that it would be read by Dänzer, of course—so she ensured that her flowing text included as many ornate metaphors and allusions to God the Almighty One and requests for prayer as possible. Dänzer wouldn't understand the imagery of a cherry tree hesitating to bloom despite March's approaching end. He could never comprehend the relationship between pink blossoms on a tree and a pink-veiled assassin's hesitation—nor the relationship between a shepherdless lost lamb and a blonde commoner with yet no clear allegiance. He wouldn't grasp that the blindness of the Three Magi to all but the Christchild—and _O, such beautiful faith!_—was the blindspot of the Third Reich. She smiled with satisfaction and blew her latest line of fine script dry.

"Whatcha writing?" Nico asked. He'd paused from poking gingerly at his bandaged wound again and must have seen her smile.

"A letter." She quipped. It had become painfully obvious that he was willing to put aside his frustration and dislike if it meant receiving attention. He'd even tried striking up conversation with the rat several times in the last hour. She wasn't sure if Dänzer's son had left due to that prodding attention or if he had his own engagement to deal with, but he still had not returned.

"Are you gonna read it to me?" He inquired it so innocently that Sonja had to pause and blink up at him in pure curiosity before she could feel annoyed.

"No." She pronounced it slowly, patronizingly, as though he were some strange creature from another planet—unaware of his own social flaws. "If it is not addressed to you, then you should not read it. That is _very _basic etiquette."

"Yeah, that's why I said _you_ should read it." He quipped back quickly. Sonja felt her mouth twitch at the corner. She was glad that the rat had skittered out of the room some time ago. His creepy little smirk would have made her even more annoyed. She did not respond to Nico this time, instead writing. He flicked the pill she'd handed him earlier into the air, then caught it. Against her better judgment, Sonja watched it sail up and down until she unwittingly found her eyes locked with his. She had foolishly granted her other heart a peek into this world, and now it would not stop nagging her with its odd feelings, like _curiosity_.

"Why? It's just a letter to my convent." He shrugged in response.

"I just like letters." His response was so matter-of-fact and yet so ridiculous that Sonja felt her annoyance spike.

"It's boring." She argued back without thinking. As soon as the protest came out of her mouth, she knew she was taking this too far. This was frighteningly reminiscent of a real conversation—she'd even neglected some of her perfect grammar—and conversing with corpses was never a good idea. Ever. She'd made that mistake once. She'd forgotten how to imagine the pale, swollen skin of a corpse and instead saw a living _person_. Until she received a response from her organization—and she wondered still whether they would agree with her appeal at all—she had to see him as a corpse and nothing more.

"I bet it's not," he argued back. She fixed a wan smile back into place.

"Thank you for your interest. Let us come to an agreement, Nico. I will read it to you when I am finished, but only if you will take that medicine." She gestured toward the pill he was rolling between his fingers, her voice more tame again. The corpse looked at her suspiciously, but she could already see in his eyes that she had won. After a long, drawn out _hmmmm_, he nodded, though it was a hesitant thing.

"Fine, but just this once." He stated with a finality.

Another hour passed before Sonja finished writing her letter—an hour filled with the impatient comments and questions of a corpse with far too much energy. True to his word, however, he swallowed the pill with a glass of water just as she began her letter.

"The twenty-seventh of March, nineteen hundred and thirty-four," she began, holding the letter up delicately. It was interesting, to say the least, to see the rapt attention he offered her the entire time. When she finished reading the letter, he remained awestruck for several seconds following.

"Wow," he finally said. "You write really good. Gramps liked to write too, and he read me all kinds of stuff." He nodded here, quite satisfied.

"_Opalein?_ Who is that?" She asked, picking up on his affectionate term for a grandfather figure. She'd thought about correcting his grammar, but since the rat still wasn't in the room, she refused to waste the chance to pick through the corpse's past for reconnaissance.

"Gramps took care of me when I was little." He said it with a pleasant smile, but sadness crept into his features quite rapidly. "Then he died."

"And what of your parents?" Sonja asked, pressing for any info she could get.

"Ehm... They died. Gramps said he'd tell me about 'em when I got older, but... he never made it there." He rubbed the back of his head, then glanced back up at her. Sonja was nearly paralyzed with shock, but she swallowed and managed to smile sympathetically.

"I am so very sorry to hear that, Nico. Did you come to know their names, at least?" Keeping her sympathetic smile in place while he shook his head was a near insurmountable task. He didn't know.

_He didn't know_.

Sonja bid him good night at that point, then collected her things and returned to her room. She brushed her hair, dressed for bed, and washed herself in preparation for morning.

And then she rewrote her entire letter from scratch.

* * *

><p>I want to take a short moment to explain why an infected wound was considered so deadly at this point in time, in case any of you are interested in medical history at all. The reason is quite simple, they <em>were <em>incredibly deadly. Depending on where the wound was, the danger of dying would rise considerably—and the placement of Nico's wound probably puts him somewhere close to 80% chance of mortality. Less than a decade before this point, Alexander Fleming isolated penicillin, but it wouldn't be until around 1940 that it would start getting produced in a helpful way. Even then, its use was almost completely isolated to military (World War II certainly explains why that is). The demand for it was so great that at points doctors were known for _extracting it from the urine of patients_ after administering it to them—just so they could conserve and re-administer it. What Dänzer handed to Sonja is NOT penicillin but something called a sulfa drug, which were created, as stated in the story, by Bayer (which was part of the IG Farben conglomerate at that point) in Germany somewhere around 1932. Documentation for it was not published until 1935, but it _existed_ and could have been _acquired_ by someone with connections (such as Dänzer) in 1934. I'm fairly certain that Sonja's organization would be well aware of it as well if they had the right people in the right places, but a simple grunt like her would not be privvy to it. Even Tatiana—our Tsunade equivalent—is not at the same level of influence or authorization as, say, the Daimyo's parallel figure who would give _her _orders in this organization. I'm sure she'd be right pissed to find out that such a "miracle" drug was withheld for so long, however.

Unfortunately, even with the use of sulfa drugs, many deaths still occurred from infections. I would like you all to know, JUST FOR THE RECORD, that I decidedly chose to avoid treating Nico with what would be the most effective life-saving treatment at this point in history: maggot therapy. It's so effective, in fact, that it still works better than modern antibiotics in many cases even _today_. The wound is filled with maggots which then eat only the dead, infected tissue as they grow, leaving the healthy tissue intact. Maggots are known for their ravenous appetites and, incredibly, can eat faster than even many bacteria can spread. Amazing, no? But yes, I decided for the sanity and comfort of my wonderful readers to _not_ give poor Naruto Nico a leg full of wriggling, flesh-eating maggots.

You're welcome, my friends. :)

**Glossary of some of the German terms/names (Part 2)**

Once again, note that the dialect/accent of German I am _mildly _familiar with is reflected in the pronunciations below.

**Danke/Dankeschön **(_DON_-kuh/_DON_-kuh-shern): Thank you or Thank you kindly. The -schön on the end of things is considered an addition of kindness or respect

**Guten Tag **(_GOOT_'n tog): Good day

**Heil Deutschland **(hyle _DOYCH_-lant in which the lant rhymes with "font"): "Hail Germany," sort of like saying "Praise Germany!"

**IG Farben **(Unsure of how this was spoken aloud and too lazy to look up/search through documentaries—if anyone knows, PM me please!): A conglomeration of chemical companies that invented Prontosil, a "sulfa" drug which helps to fight certain types of bacteria in the body. See note above for more info on this.

**Opalein **(_OH_-puh-line): Opa alone means grandfather, but with -lein added it becomes more familiar and affectionate. I translate it as Gramps for Nico.


	3. Chapter 3

I'M SO SORRY FOR THE LOOOOONG DELAY! I actually had a chapter twice this length, but after careful thought and discussion, I decided that it needed a lot more love before it could get posted. I've been thinking about how to fix it, and I finally just came up with a good idea today, so I am hoping it won't take too long to get it posted. ;-; Sorry guys! Thanks to my buds **Turmanarmo, FaithfulWhispers, ahmadaziz,** and **Joey** for help with this. Thank you guys SO MUCH it's insane. Also, I want to thank all of you for your kind and encouraging reviews! This story is so thick compared to stuff like OBUF that it really gets me thinking... and sometimes it also gets me stuck. xD Thank you for your patience and love!

* * *

><p>The days passed quite monotonously as Sonja fell into a routine. She would attend to the corpse in the morning and ensure he had taken his medicine before he was served breakfast. The wound was cleaned and and dressed twice per day, morning and evening, and she had taken to investigating other aspects of his care—with Dänzer's approval, of course. To his diet she made some strict amends: more garlic and herbs, and absolutely no sweets. The servant she'd spoken with was the woman who'd prepared the tea—she nodded with a bowed head and folded hands, never raising her eyes to Sonja. An overwhelming urge to comfort the woman had washed over her, but it was hardly worth risking her cover. For all she knew, the handmaid was not modest but portraying a farce much like Sonja's own. Regardless, the changes in diet did not go over well, to say the least. To call Nico stubborn was to make a monstrous understatement. Meals quickly became a daily <em>ordeal<em>.

"You're kidding me, right? I'm not eating that _Dreck_." He pronounced the word with revulsion after giving the plate of food yet another disgusted sniff, his expression souring into something almost feral. Sonja gave him an encouraging smile, her eyebrows upturned.

"I assure you, Herr—I mean Nico, this will help you heal much more quickly. Garlic has been used to fight infection for centuries." Her voice was gentle and reassuring, even as her mind focused harshly on the form looming behind her. Dänzer shifted and his shadow followed, cutting a swath of gray across the bed sheets. Sonja despised the way he made it a point to stand behind her.

"Heh, I can get better without your nasty smelling trash food." The blonde gave her a smirk and crossed his arms.

Before Sonja could respond, Dänzer spoke. "Eat or have nothing." His cold voice was commanding and final. Nico glared up at him, all the humor falling away from his expression.

"Y'know, what the heck's your problem, old man? I thought you wanted me to get better. All you do is moan like you got something stuck way up your—"

"Herr Nicolaus," Dänzer interrupted him with a cold, seething voice. "It appears you are learning very little." He moved again, and Sonja watched his shadow slide across the bed until he was once again standing in her view. His eyes were on her. Nico snorted—he'd certainly missed the fact that the comment was meant for Sonja, not himself—frowning but not speaking as the tall, imposing man grasped a notebook off the chest at the foot of the bed. He flipped it open and his eye skimmed the page.

Days earlier, Dänzer had demanded strict documentation from Sonja and handed her the leatherbound notebook; in it, she recorded all activities with Herr Nicolaus. His blue eyes had watched curiously as she penned in details—she included everything from wound care to body temperature to food eaten. Now, those same eyes were boring into Dänzer, challenging him as he once again began to speak. "Perhaps I made a mistake offering you shelter." Sonja tensed slightly but otherwise avoided any reaction, listening further. "Your choice will be yours, Herr Nicolaus. Eat properly... or die of your infection after muttering like a lunatic with fever for a week. Certainly you would have done just so back in your gutter." Dänzer bit the words out with a sneering, venomous tone and a cruel smirk. Although Nico's eyes widened a tad, his frown only read defiance. He reared up and pushed his food tray away—a welcome distraction when it was taking Sonja effort to keep her mask carefully in place. _Gutter?_

"You think you scare me?" Nico spat. Sonja had to catch his plate before it slid off the tray and onto his sheets.

Whatever he'd planned to do was cut short, however. The door creaked open and a tall man that Sonja had not yet seen peeked inside.

"Herr Dänzer. You are needed." He spoke in quipped, short tones. With another shift, Dänzer tossed the notebook back down and moved away, stepping around the bed and exiting the room without so much as another word. Sonja watched with narrowed eyes. The man who'd peeked in was dressed not as a servant but with a different uniform. A bodyguard of some sort? She wished she could follow, but it was far too early to begin testing those boundaries. Even so, she was much more intrigued with those strange comments—this could be the perfect way to pry into how the two had met. She did not get the chance, however.

No sooner had she opened her mouth to speak when the door creaked open again. This time, Sven stepped in, his expression bland. Sonja cursed mentally at the poor timing, although it wasn't exactly unexpected. Dänzer's son had consistently spent each afternoon playing the role of creepy wallflower chaperone, although thankfully he'd kept his eyes dutifully in the pages of books rather than on Sonja for the most part.

"Come," she said, moving the tray closer to the corpse once more. "At least try it." The food must have been cold by now—it had been sitting in front of him for at least two hours. He appraised it again, shot a quick glare at their dark guest, and then stole a small taste of the meal. Sonja wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but the over-dramatic gagging, choking noises he made as he shoved the tray away from himself were not quite it. She sighed, catching the plate a second time so that it wouldn't soil his white blanket, and glanced up to find Sven's strange smirk in place, his eyes fixed on her. This had become Sonja's every day.

The routine continued.

After two days of rejecting all but breakfast, Nico had finally succumbed to his hunger and choked down some garlic toast. Progress was progress, even if his eyes had bored into her venomously throughout the ordeal. It was unfortunate, however, that his contempt for the meal change made it nearly impossible to pry anything out of him. She'd have to wait until he brought it up.

It was after one of these long, slow days that Sonja retired to her room. Many years had passed since she'd given up on slumbering deeply, but the company of Dänzer and his son made even the most restless of sleep a near impossibility. Now that a few nights had passed, however, she was able to shift into light rest for at least some hours of the night.

—

The walls of the hospital rose ghostly around her, fuzzy and soft at the edges. She was bent over a small patient, a little girl with a scraped knee. The blood had coagulated; Sonja wiped it away and stitched up the cold, ragged lips of the wound. The skin around it was a sickly yellow in the wake of a bandage tied too tightly. She expected the skin to slowly take on reddish tones as blood flow returned, but it remained pale, mottled with yellows and grays.

A corpse.

Sonja stood and stepped backward, her breath catching in her throat painfully. She stumbled backwards into the hallway, and her heel bumped into something soft. The halls were piled high with pale, swollen bodies. Flies buzzed around them. Clapping a hand to her mouth, she darted into another patient's room. One with a light on. One in which she could still hear the soft whir of running equipment.

She froze in the doorway. Bodies were strewn all over the floor, covered in dirt and writhing as they starved to death.

Sonja fled.

Room to room, she slipped into the doorways, her panic and terror increasing with each cold, graying body. All dead. All of them.

A hand clapped onto her shoulder, and Sonja was paralyzed, her feet stuck to the floor rigidly.

"Good job. It had to be done." Frau Schwend's voice was a strange thing, missing all of its tough love and containing only the frightening shadows that were usually relegated to the corners of her lips—and only when she gave missions.

"I did this?" Sonja didn't _say _it. Her lips didn't move. Her voice did not reach her own ears. But Tatiana heard her heart's words.

"Of course." She responded.

"But I can't. These people are innocent—these are _my_ people. I would _never_." She was still paralyzed, the hospital's ghostly walls shifting closer crushingly.

Tatiana _laughed_.

"No, my darling." Her voice was so gentle now, smooth like a poisoned needle sliding into a vein. "These people have not killed. You will _never_ be like them."

Sonja sat up in bed, sweating and feeling her heart thud against her rib cage painfully. _The wrong heart_. It took her a long while to fix her other heart back into place—the porcelain heart that belonged here on this mission—and then lull herself back into a state of rest—_not sleep_. She listened to the sounds of the Dänzer Estate slowly coming to life. When the sun had finally risen, she rose to begin her daily routine.

—

The corpse was haphazardly splayed across his bed when she entered, full of life she never thought she'd _want_ to see in him. She shifted that porcelain heart back into place forcefully once again. This mission, she thought vaguely, was going on far too long. At the sound of the door clicking shut, he stirred, though he was still only vaguely conscious. She turned from the door to face him again—only to find him scratching in a most unseemly way.

"Honestly," she spat, her tone disgusted. "Please make yourself decent _immediately_." His response was to blink at her blearily, glance at what his hand was doing as though it were disconnected from him entirely, and then give a tired chuckle.

"You probly do it too." His voice croaked, filled with drowsiness; his smile became even more sloppy.

"How _dare_ you?" She seethed through clenched teeth. To hell with this. Dänzer was gone, the rat wasn't here—Sonja stormed forward and cuffed his ear.

"Yow!" He awakened instantly and scrabbled to sit up. With a hiss, he dropped one hand to hover over his wounded leg, the other still clutched to his ear. "Hey, c'mon!"

"You will behave like a proper gentleman so long as I am here, do you understand me?" His face unscrunched, allowing him to gaze up at her in owlish shock. "Well?" She demanded an answer.

"Ahh... yeah. Okay." He said finally, still quite dumbfounded. When she angrily pointed a finger at his chest, his eyes grew even wider.

"Do not fill up silence with slovenly sounds like _ah._ Do not say _yeah_, say _yes_. And most of all, _do not say okay_." She poked him in the chest with each command, her voice rising all the while.

"O—yes. I got it. _Ach du liebe zeit_..." He muttered the last part under his breath, rubbing the back of his head.

"And straighten your hair." She added, shaking her head and stepping toward the chest at the foot of his bed where her medical bag lay.

"You're real different when the old man's gone, huh?" He asked. Sonja slowed to a pause with her hand reached inside the bag. Had she really let her guard down that much? The answer was an obvious yes. She was making the mistake of seeing her corpse as a _patient_ now that her goal was to heal him—or rather now that was her goal was _tentatively_ to heal him until her letter received a response. She grasped her scissors from the bag, then turned to face him once again.

"I have simply come to understand you better, Nico." She smiled, raising her scissors to prominent view. "And I expect you to act like more than just a large child."

"_Hey_," he protested only halfheartedly, his eyes trained onto the scissors with suspicion.

"Do not address people with _hey_; that is incredibly rude." She stated. He blinked with surprise, silenced.

"But I used to say it to Gramps all the time. He never thought I was rude." Sonja very nearly threw back a useless comeback without thinking—why did he have to be so _defiant_—but she composed herself once again with a frown.

"And exactly how old were you when he died?" She blurted. It sounded as though it had burst forth from her mouth, a thoughtless retort—which was a perfectly intentional farce—but in truth she was making a calculated attempt to pry. He shifted uncomfortably.

"I dunno, it was a long time ago." He mumbled.

"Say '_do not know_'—and you must have _some_ idea." She pressed, snipping at his bandages yet again.

"_I don't know_." He bit out the words, his voice taking on a hard edge, and she paused to look up at him. "Don't you have better stuff to do than bug me all the time?" He crossed his arms and glared out the window.

For just a moment, Sonja feared her letter had been a grave error. She had _blatantly_ endorsed the idea that this corpse was an innocent and deserved further investigation. Was he concealing his past to hide something corrupted and vile? But no—his expression had been too emotional, too visceral to indicate secrecy and conspiracy. No, he was _hurt_, not hiding. Relief washed over her. Unfortunately, she'd hit yet another wall with her prying. She would have to be patient once again, regardless of how much she may not want to be. It wouldn't do to lose _all_ of his trust, now would it?

"I apologize," she said, finally unwrapping his wound and beginning to clean it once more. It was beginning to scab over nicely. "I did not intend—"

"It's fine, don't worry about it." He interrupted with a somber tone, though he looked far more uncomfortable than angry.

In the end, it seemed as though it truly were fine. By the time she'd finished cleaning his wound, he was as amicably talkative as any other time, although he carefully skirted the sensitive topic. Sonja didn't mind too terribly; she was patient.

—

That night, Sonja did not make the mistake of sleeping too deeply. She laid between sleep and waking until she heard the manor bustling to life hours before sunrise. Blinking slowly, she listened as the muffled, distant clatter of dishes occasionally drifted up from the kitchens. When the gravelly tones of Dänzer's voice joined them, she rose.

"...while away. I expect nothing less." He was saying as she sank to a crouch on the stairs in silence. His voice was already alert despite the sleepy hour.

"Jawohl." Came the rigid response, though the voice was far more quiet and difficult to hear. Sven. "When shall you return?"

"Concern yourself with more important things, like your studies." He groused in response. "My business in Darmstadt is my own."

Darmstadt. Sonja ducked back up the stairs to her room undetected. That was half a day's travel from here alone—his absence could last far into the next day.

The engine of his automobile cranked loudly to life as she lie in bed, and as the auto faded into the distance, she finally allowed herself to drift into a light sleep.

—

The routine would break today. She cleaned his wound a bit more quickly that morning and forwent measuring his swelling. Instead, she focused on how she'd depart from her duties in order to make use of Dänzer's absence. She had noted that silences were rarely tolerated by the corpse; it gave her a solid understanding of what she'd already noticed: he was bored beyond description. That was exactly why she took advantage of a pause in his neverending commentary. As she quietly rebandaged his leg, she addressed him.

"Would you like to read something? I can surely get you a book if you would prefer." His lack of answer gave her pause, so she glanced up from her work. His eyes quickly shifted from her to the window. "It must be tedious to sit for so long," she added. His mouth moved in an odd way, and she realized he was biting the inside of his cheek in thought.

"Yeah, I guess." As he said it, a rather forced smile appeared on his face. Sonja returned her attention to his wound as she responded.

"Please give a proper answer. _I guess_ displays indecision." She glanced back up to see his expression foul into annoyance yet again. He crossed his arms, saying nothing as she snipped the fabric and tied it, then stood to tuck the roll back into her bag. "I'll get you a book," she stated pleasantly.

"Yeah—yes. Dankeschön." He was scratching his head with an uncomfortable expression, watching her leave the room.

"Bitteschön." She smiled and departed, clicking the door shut.

—

The book lie was perfect, of course. It would allow her to dig through a few offices _and _provided her with a backed alibi. She had just finished digging through Dänzer's study, carefully noting the way he had meticulously aligned the items on his desk and in his drawers and then replacing them all properly. Unfortunately—and as expected—she found nothing of interest. She moved on from there, sidling along the walls to avoid stepping on creaky boards as she padded through the third floor's hallway. This top floor seemed mostly unoccupied, and the first room she found herself exploring was being used for storage. Paintings cloaked with thick covers were on the walls—she peeked under one of the velvet drapes to see the portrait of a young Dänzer with a woman at his side. She cringed at the thought and moved forward. Out of habit, she slid her fingers under the lips of tables and the other furniture pieces in the room, searching for hidden items. Her luck was running dry, it seemed, until she reached a table pressed back into a corner near the door.

Her fingers brushed paper.

Sonja crouched and narrowed her eyes dangerously—long rolls of paper were taped to the belly of the table, hidden from the world otherwise. She tore one free carefully and then unrolled it, still crouched. Her eyes grew wide at what was on the paper.

It was an art work.

It was a _modern _art work.

The image was post-impressionistic, although it used only gray tones—charcoal was the artist's medium—to portray a chromatic, abstract cityscape complete with cars, towering buildings, and streets reflective with rain water. Her eyes were drawn to each detail, and her parted lips formed a whispered, nearly soundless word: "_Beautiful._" She tore her eyes away and then tucked it back into place, pressing hard to set the now-twice-stuck tape. The second painting was in the same abstract style, but it depicted the mirror-like surface of a lake with tall pines and jagged mountains as a backdrop. Even in the simple charcoal, the detail was stunning. Sonja was left awestruck once again—the scene was captivating beyond words.

But it was also disconcerting. The Reich hadn't pursued modern art the way they had sought out and destroyed "un-German" books, but it was no secret that they worked to demonize it. Sonja certainly wouldn't be surprised if they _did _eventually collect and burn paintings. Pettiness was no stranger to those who sought power; if Goebbels wasn't below releasing mice and stink bombs into theaters playing an "un-German" film, surely it would be no leap to see his corrosive gaze turn to fine art.

So why did Dänzer have modern art stashed away like this? Was it his at all or did it belong to another in the household? Surely Dänzer would have a better place to hide his paraphernalia. After tucking the second painting back into place, she unrolled a third, sucking in her breath as the paper unfurled. This one, though still in charcoal, was unlike the others—an incredibly detailed portrait. She thought she was seeing Sven for a moment, but there was an unfamiliar curve to his face, and his hair was both longer and lighter in color. He wore a smile that was small but brilliant and full of life. Somehow, Sonja could almost _feel_ affection emanating from the artwork; the artist had put love into this. These were not acquired by whomever had hidden them. They were _created_.

The sound of a creaking floorboard—_the stairs?_—jerked her into succinct motions. Roll up the painting. Reapply it as best as possible with the tape. Secure a safe location. She froze, eyes flitting over the room and settling on another table. This one was packed closely to a couch so that, were she to duck underneath, an intruder would have to sidle into an odd position to catch sight of her at all. But before wasting the effort of sliding into place, she listened carefully for any other sounds. Silence met her.

It remained thus for long enough to make her feel secure, so she stepped to the door in silence and slid it open. The woman who set foot into the hallway was no longer Sonja but Sister Sara, lost and curious. Her act did not go to waste.

She wasn't alone.

Sven stood peering at her, halted in mid-step and eyes widened like some feral creature of prey. He was no more than ten steps away. Sonja swallowed, the tension in her muscles rising, but then her eyes slid over his form and it was all she could to do to avoid smirking.

There, tucked against his arm so that, without careful study, it seemed to melt right into the shadows of his black jacket: another rolled up artwork wrapped in brown paper. Sonja permitted herself a smile, though she kept it pleasant and gentle rather than triumphant.

"Herr Sven! Oh, I am so glad to find you. Could you help me find a book? I wanted to supplement Herr Nicolaus's studies." She smiled and then, when he continued to stare at her in silence, allowed her face to slide into concern. "Oh my, I do apologize for my discourtesy. Since Herr Dänzer suggested I use resources, I had thought to seek them out. Deepest apologies if this was untoward." She bowed her head respectfully. At that, he seemed to shift back to life, visibly relaxing from the half-step pose he'd been frozen in. Then that odd, tiny smile found its place on his features.

"Ask the servants on the first floor." He stated simply, his voice almost inhumanly composed. Sonja had to be impressed; if he was nervous, it no longer showed. But the chink in his armor had been apparent, and even now he held the roll of paper awkwardly close to him, refusing to shift his arm and risk drawing attention to it. After all, this was no collection of art hidden from the world for safe keeping, this was a secret _lifestyle_. A man like Dänzer would never condone an activity of such indulgence and _expression_.

"Dankeschön, Herr Sven." Sonja smiled even more pleasantly. She held a new card now, but it was worthless if she did not tip her hand just a little. Pretending to suddenly notice his roll of paper, Sonja feigned pleasant surprise, tilting her head. "Oh, those are yours? They are beautiful." Her words were a dagger pressed to his throat—his whole body tensed up again, and before he could respond, she had nodded him a farewell and headed back down to the first floor. No need to prolong the interaction.

He would come to her.

* * *

><p>Erhmmmm, wonder where this is gonna go. :T<p>

If you're interested in Sven's art style, look up "charcoal post-impressionism." Post-impressionism was seen as controversial at this point in Germany and much of Europe, although certainly not as much as some other styles (like surrealism and cubism). However, Sai's artwork is so traditional and really quite beautiful in the manga that I couldn't bring myself to give him _too_ dissonant a style, like much of the post-WWI modern art was.

As of 1934, the German government hadn't really lashed out against art in any large way. It wouldn't be until about 1937 that you'd see that happening significantly. Books, on the other hand, had already been burned by this point, so it's no stretch of the imagination for Dänzer to play into the anti-"un-German" art movement. I still think it's more accurate to blame not the art style but his utilitarian parenting style—which certainly includes crushing senseless things like _emotions _and _expression_.

—

**Glossary:**

**Ach du liebe zeit** (ahch du _LEE_-beh tzite in which that "ch" is a guttural h sound... you guys know the one. xD): This phrase is hard if not impossible to translate to English literally without it being complete nonsense. It's an exclamation that can mean something along the lines of "Oh for the love of..." or "Oh my goodness!"

**Bitteschön **(_BIT_-teh-shern): You're welcome kindly.

**Dankeschön** (_DON_-keh-shern): Thank you kindly.

**Darmstadt **(_DAHM_-shtaht): A city in Germany.

**Dreck **(dreck, man. It's just dreck): Dirt, filth.

**Goebbels **(_GEUR_-bulls with a hard g as in "_g_ame")

**Jawohl **(ya-_VOLE_): Yes, yes sir. Used often in the military, but not exclusively.


End file.
